I am the author of Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned on My Accidental Journey to the Happiest Kingdom on Earth (Broadway Books, April 2012.) I am also a journalist who can be found on CNN, NY Times, MSNBC, public radio's Marketplace, KCRW. I'm interested in what makes us happy, and the big business behind answering that very question.

It seems incredible that a devoutly Buddhist nation you may have never heard of, expert at keeping away the spoils of the outside world, could get trapped in the muck of an international economic meltdown.

The housing boom in the fastest growing south Asian capital, Thimphu

Bhutan is poor, isolated, yet rich in what developed countries lack; it’s considered to be happy because of its long-standing commitment to the well-being of its people and environment over the quest of almighty cash. (In fact, economists from Britain and France to Brazil and Canada are so intrigued by this concept of “Gross National Happiness” they’ve been closely studying it and looking at ways to incorporate it into their own addled economies.)

Bhutan, where subsistence farming is the mainstay and per capita income is about $2 a day, didn’t even have its own currency until 1974. Barter largely sufficed. The “ ngultrum” is on par with the Indian rupee, but the rupee rules supreme in a country that has few exports, and depends heavily on its larger, wealthier neighbor.

Bhutan’s currency crisis, say its leaders, is evidence of a radical shift in the nation over the last five years. They trace it back to a couple of dark forces common to those of us in the far wealthier west: overspending, and over-borrowing.

The 100-ngultrum note, approximately $2

To stave off the bleed, Bhutanese banks in the past week have clamped down on loans, in some cases ceasing them altogether. To wean people from the rupee, they’ve limited its availability (crippling shopkeepers who stock their stores with goods purchased from Indian merchants, as well as anyone who sends kids to school or otherwise conducts business across the border.)

Ironically, the Bhutanese government has borrowed 60 million rupees from India to stay afloat, while forcing foreigners who maintained bank accounts in Bhutan to close them.

The center of Thimphu

Only a very few years ago, the events of the last few weeks in Bhutan would have been unimaginable. Personal loans were not widely available from the nation’s two government-run banks. (Two privately owned banks have opened since, driving down the price of fees and making banking friendlier to the masses.)

If you wanted to buy a car, you needed steep collateral, or plain old cash. (The number of private vehicles in Bhutan has doubled in the last five years to about 60-thousand, with an attendant rise in accidents.) Personal loans were first given a few years ago for no particular reason, and people took them for no particular reason–except to spend.

A colorful truck imports goods from India

Not very long ago, most people had no need to purchase property; families had a home and a plot of land, inhabited and cared for by the multiple generations who lived on it. Food wasn’t widely imported, and when you didn’t grow it yourself, you traded for it; packaged goods like snacks and convenience foods are recent luxuries that are contributing to the waistline, the trash, as well as the cost of living.

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